CopiCola Program - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

CopiCola tackles the problem of knowledge loss in the public sector by investing in the registration of initiatives that can inspire civil servants, facilitate processes and reduce risks. The programme identifies, records and disseminates innovative practices with the potential to be adopted in different public management contexts. Knowledge is passed from civil servant to civil servant, facilitating the connection between actors and enhancing learning from the cases recorded.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

The city of São Paulo has more than 120,000 civil servants. It is a place where many professionals, experiences and knowledge circulate and at the same time an organisation affected by team turnover. In this complex scenario, knowledge management is a challenge and a necessity. However, knowledge management actions are not yet widespread in the city hall. Often relying on lean teams to operate different work fronts, there is a lack of time, method, practice and prioritisation of internal efforts to record and disseminate the strategies, resources and processes that have enabled successful solutions, projects and public policies, leaving the practical knowledge accumulated in day-to-day management isolated and concentrated in a few professionals, teams and sectors.

Knowledge is not systematised and transformed into knowledge that can be easily mobilised and disseminated, gaining scale. The internal capacity of teams to develop new solutions or replicate successful actions already tested is hampered, as they do not have the accumulation of knowledge that could facilitate processes and reduce risks. The loss of knowledge acquired in previous experiences can even hinder the continuity of promising initiatives, configuring a poor use of public resources and hindering the construction of an innovative environment.

CopiCola was born out of an effort to prototype a methodology for recording innovative initiatives in São Paulo City Hall. After an experimental phase, the programme was consolidated with the aim of documenting innovative practices in municipal public management, focusing on facilitating their replication in other contexts and valuing the knowledge of civil servants. The programme identifies, records and disseminates innovative practices with the potential to be adopted in different public management contexts. The team seeks to understand the problem that the civil servants tried to solve, map the resources and processes needed to develop the solutions, and highlight the real challenges faced during implementation. These learnings are presented through didactic and attractive narratives, built in a collaborative way.

The objectives of the programme are:

To recognise the civil servants behind the scenes of good practices and public policies
To map and systematise the knowledge, methodologies, tools and processes that are built by the civil servants of the Municipality of São Paulo
To share the record of projects and public policies that seek to innovate in order to inspire and stimulate solutions within the public sector
Disseminate a knowledge management methodology for civil servants

The programme develops materials in different formats - such as guides, summary pages, videos and activity proposals - to invest in dissemination that facilitates the connection between actors and enhances learning from the cases recorded. Indirectly, civil society sectors can also benefit from the materials built by the programme. CopiCola guides have been used by academic institutions and have been mapped, mainly in the teaching of courses such as Public Administration and Public Policy Management.

The programme was implemented through cycles:

Prototyping - development of the research methodology, based on interviews, questionnaires, conversation circles and existing documents. The prototype identified the need to focus on the replicable aspects of the cases, and to present learnings, risks and challenges faced in the projects.
Pilot Implementation - a first three-month contracting of a research institute was made to test the CopiCola shared management model. A partner was needed who had expertise in qualitative research and knowledge of public policy, and who was familiar with applied research, without using academic language.
. Implementation - a call for proposals was made to hire a civil society organisation that could develop the programme along the same lines of shared management as the partnership experience. The construction of a term of collaboration was considered the best strategy, as it guarantees sufficient flexibility in its execution to be able to experiment with research methodologies and dissemination formats. In addition, it is a partnership format, with a clear agreement on responsibilities, which contributes to the collaborative development of products.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

Experimentation: allowed the team to evaluate process learnings and challenges to quickly incorporate necessary changes.
Focus on public servant knowledge: valuing the narrative of the public servants involved in the registered processes.
Encouraging exchange between public servants, who can learn from each other through concrete experiences.
Partnership format: enables public administration and academia to work together to solve a concrete problem.
Dissemination of knowledge: the materials are designed with accessible language and a playful learning experience. Increasing the possibility of civil servants being inspired and replicating the good practices developed, and promoting the culture of innovation in public management.
Collective learning: the methodology offers opportunities for the collaborative construction of knowledge among civil servants. The teams of the registered cases have the opportunity to build a systemic vision of their projects.

What is the current status of your innovation?

Since 2018, the Sao Paulo Municipality has been using the “Copicola” programme to gather learnings across all departments. This knowledge management platform enable users to share and rely on existing examples to save time and resources in order to replicate successful interventions and learn from previous attempts.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

The programme is implemented through a partnership with a civil society organisation, CEBRAP - Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento. The partnership allows public administration and academia to work towards solving a concrete problem. The format innovates by ensuring flexibility of action and experimentation with research methodologies and formats of dissemination materials. Thus, creating a long-term sustainable partnership by incorporating learning in CopiCola's management.

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

For teams that are innovating, CopiCola is an opportunity to systematise practices that are often only in the minds of the servants themselves. It is also a time to think about the mistakes and successes of policies. For other civil servants in the city, it brings the opportunity to inspire and meet those who have already innovated. Thus, CopiCola saves time and resources, since mistakes can be avoided and solutions can be copied, adapted and improved.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

By 2022, the platform had 174 participants and 21 registered initiatives involving 18 municipal bodies. We have received around 13,300 views on the website from more than 276 cities and 942 downloads of the materials. We have hosted 19 events to disseminate innovative practices involving 513 participants in face-to-face events and have achieved 1,311 views of the launch videos on Youtube.

One initiative was fully replicated by the municipality of Niterói (Rio de Janeiro) through the guide "How to encourage choices through communication with the population?. The Nudges case in IPTU collection". The replication of the initiative generates resource savings, as it is possible to mobilise knowledge and evidence already recorded, and it is not necessary to "reinvent the wheel" to solve the public problem. In 2022, the programme was mentioned as a good practice in the "Innovation Playbook" of the OECD's OPSI (OECD Public Sector Innovation Observatory).

Challenges and Failures

The implementation of the pilot guide showed that scaling up the registration and dissemination of cases requires the allocation of a team with continuous dedication. This challenge was addressed through experimentation and shared construction of the programme in partnership with CEBRAP. The fluctuation in the availability of staff to participate in activities presented challenges to meeting the programme's deadlines and research processes. To address this issue, a document was created detailing the steps of the programme and the responsibilities of each party. Showing and disseminating the importance of knowledge management within public management is another challenge the team faced. Recording and giving tools to enable the implementation of new initiatives inspired by existing actions is an intangible resource and it can be difficult to measure and highlight its importance.

Conditions for Success

The experimentation made it possible to define the registration guidelines, refine and redesign the research methodology based on the learnings from the pilot. The first guide produced served as a pilot to validate the methodology created. It helped to agree on demands and responsibilities with the implementing partner, bringing maturity to the programme. Partnering with technical expertise brought support and quality to the formulation of research and preparation of materials. It contributed to the construction of the programme during the experimentation process. The political and senior management support for the culture of innovation, in addition to allowing time for the initiative to mature, facilitated entry into other bodies, ensuring financial resources and recognition of the teams involved. The relevance of our subject was one of the key aspects of our success, as we were working with a real difficulty that was and is common to all areas of the municipality. The thematic interest was fundamental to allow openness in sharing knowledge.

Replication

The programme aims to disseminate a knowledge management methodology to civil servants, therefore all CopiCola tools and processes are public and freely accessible via the website. The "Guide 22 - How to identify and disseminate innovation through knowledge management? The CopiCola case" proposes exercises and reflections for the replication of the methodology created by the programme. Based on a usability survey, it was found that users of the programme replicate the reflections, structures and formats of the materials made available in their projects. For example, the project summary pages serve as a framework for civil servants to think about their own projects, with an indication of the most relevant information. In addition, the methodology created is used by other municipal administration programmes, such as the Residency in Public Management, in which residents will use the processes created by CopiCola to record their own initiatives.

Lessons Learned

One of the biggest learnings from the programme was the openness to learn from mistakes. CopiCola went through cycles of experimentation that allowed us to deepen the problem and iterate the solution, in an incremental process of improvement. Understanding the format of the partnership with a civil society organisation was also a learning experience that today allows flexibility of action, experimentation with research methodologies and scaling up activities, institutionalising the programme. Another lesson we have learnt along the way is that there is a symbolic element in recognising civil servants who are innovating, as it shows them that they are not alone and are part of a larger network of civil servants who are seeking to make a difference in municipal management: promoting a culture of innovation. Finally, it is necessary to explore innovation in government as a positive agenda, showing the paths and opportunities that can be applied by government areas.